https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/b...toral-college/

Adecisive moment is coming for the peoples of the States, especially for thosewho consider themselves conservatives yet belong to the cult of Lincoln: Will the Electoral College system forselecting the federal president continue on, or will it be scrapped for apurely national vote?

Atthe State and federal level, attempts to change it are ongoing:

Calls to abolish the Electoral College are gaining more traction among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren becoming the latest high-profile backer of the electoral reform.

During a CNN town hall in Jackson, Miss., on Monday night, the Massachusetts Democrat threw her support behind eliminating the Electoral College when discussing how to expand voting rights

“Come a general election, presidential candidates don’t come to places like Mississippi, they also don’t come to places like California or Massachusetts, because we’re not the battleground states,” Warren said at the town hall.

“My view is that every vote matters, and the way we can make that happen is that we can have national voting, and that means get rid of the Electoral College,” she said to a standing ovation.

The debate over the Electoral College has gained prominence in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, despite the former secretary of state winning the popular vote by nearly three million votes.

There’s a state-level effort burgeoning that seeks to dilute the power of the Electoral College. Colorado is the latest state to join a compact with 11 other states and the District of Columbia in which they pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Andyet, what hangs in the balance is more than just a method of election. It is an understanding of where the locus ofauthority rests: at the State level orat the federal level. To be consistentin supporting the Electoral College, its defenders must acknowledge theprinciple of State sovereignty that underlies it. If, however, they insist on loyalty to PresLincoln’s view of the union, that the united States are ‘one nationindivisible’ rather than 50 unique, individual nations that can voluntarily leavea union they voluntarily joined, then the Electoral College MUST be replacedwith a national voting system. TheStates in the latter view are superfluous at best and hindrances at worst tothe proper expression of the divine ‘national will’ in Washington City.
TheElectoral College will therefore stand or fall mainly on the grounds of Statesovereignty. But defenders of thecurrent system who follow the contradictory doctrines of the pro-Lincolnconservatives will try to save it instead
witharguments based on utility
: It’smore fair to people in ‘flyover country’; there is less chance of cheating in adecentralized presidential election system; etc. See, e.g.,


Butarguments of utility will not withstand the withering blast of the passions ofthe masses who are determined to gain thus and such abstract right they feelthey are entitled to. Already aplurality (46-41)
supportreplacing
the Electoral College (if polls are to be believed)


Whenthe media propaganda machine kicks into high gear, what will the results be? And the power of that propaganda is greaterthan ever thanks to the research and practices of the Big Tech/social mediagiants:

Increasingconcentration of power within Silicon Valley undermines free markets and humanfreedom, remarked [Louisiana Attorney General Jeff] Landry.

“When you look at the amount of data, the amount of processing power that these companies have at their disposal, they know more about you than you know about yourself,” said Landry. “We’ve seen them make comments like, ‘We can basically bend the consumer in the direction we want him to go rather than what he wants.’ That’s not independence. That’s not liberty. That’s not a free market.”

Andif the Electoral College goes,
sotoo will the Senate

Utilityis not enough. Arguments must be madefrom principle and other solid realities. Only this will be strong enough to withstand the floodtide of misguidedpassions until they subside. For principle,truth, long-standing customs and institutions are what is real; the passionsare fed by the abstract, by theories, that which is false and unreal. The latter will fall to pieces eventually;but the former will endure. Thus, wemust counter the mental construct of the Hobbesian sandbox of sovereignindividuals with the reality of the sovereign States; abstract propositionslike ‘one man, one vote’ (even for knot-headed teenagers) with the ancientunwritten constitution, with political power vested in landowners and thepatriarchs of families (simply an upper age limit for the franchise of 40 or 50may do wonders at this point); the social contract with organic communities historicallyand ontologically rooted in a particular culture.

AndrewLytle saw one of the weaknesses of the South in her being too caught up infighting defensive battles rather than going on the offense. In addition to the above, as it regards theElectoral College in particular, there needs to be a counter-proposal to thenational popular vote. One idea that wewould offer is to allow the governors of the States to elect the federalpresident. This seems beneficial for afew reasons:

First,it would simplify the election process (no more voting for slates of electorswhom no one has ever heard of) and reinforce the idea of the equality of theStates in the union by granting each State one vote for the president

Second,it would give the States a greater measure of power over the federalgovernment.

Third,it would put an end to the silly melodrama that presidential elections havebecome thanks to talk radio, cable news, etc. We do not need an entire ‘season’ dedicated to the selection of thefederal president, as though this were somehow as important as the Christmasseason or the growing season for crops

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Adecisive moment is what the ancient Greeks referred to as a crisis (
κρίσις
),and though it can be a time of great peril, it can also be a time of greatopportunity. Thus, for the South, thisdebate over the Electoral College is an opportunity to take a few steps backtowards healthy traditions. And didn’tRahm Emanuel teach us to never let a good crisis go to waste? We dare not gainsay the wisdom of a Yankee.